Albert I of Belgium

Albert I of Belgium (8 April 1875-17 February 1934) was King of Belgium from 23 December 1909 to 17 February 1934, succeeding Leopold II and preceding Leopold III. He was famous for personally leading Belgian forces during the 1918 Hundred Days Offensive of World War I.

Biography
Albert Leopold Clement Marie Meinrad von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was born on 8 April 1875, the second son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders and the grandson of King Leopold I of Belgium. Albert came to the Belgian throne in 1909 and became a popular king. As a constitutional monarch, he had no control over military matters until the outbreak of war, when the constitution made him commander-in-chief. His resistance to Germany was motivated by a determination to preserve Belgium as an independent nation. He kept his army intact in 1914, first in Antwerp and them through withdrawing westward along the Flanders coast. He headed a government-in-exile in Le Havre, France. In October 1918, he commanded Allied forces in the Courtrai Offensive in Belgium, re-entering Brussels in triumph in November 1918. He oversaw the reconstruction of Belgium after the war, masterminded the introduction of the "one man, one vote" system, and the first five years of the Great Depression, and he died in a mountaineering accident in 1934.